Russell Means

Associated Press

Russell C. Means, 1939 — 2012

Russell C. Means was a charismatic Oglala Sioux who helped revive the warrior image of the American Indian in the 1970s with guerrilla-tactic protests that called attention to the nation’s history of injustices against its indigenous peoples. He died on Oct. 22, 2012, at his ranch in Porcupine, S.D., on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, at the age of 72.

Strapping, ruggedly handsome in buckskins, with a scarred face, piercing dark eyes and raven braids that dangled to the waist, Mr. Means was, by his own account, a magnet for trouble — addicted to drugs and alcohol in his early years, and later arrested repeatedly in violent clashes with rivals and the law, once tried for abetting a murder, shot several times, stabbed once and imprisoned for a year for rioting.

He styled himself a throwback to ancestors who resisted the westward expansion of the American frontier and, with theatrical protests that brought national attention to poverty and discrimination suffered by his people, became arguably the nation’s best-known Indian since Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.

But critics, including many Native Americans, called him a tireless self-promoter who capitalized on his angry-rebel notoriety by running quixotic races for the presidency and the governorship of New Mexico, by acting in dozens of movies — notably in the title role of “The Last of the Mohicans” (1992) — and by writing and recording music commercially with Indian warrior and heritage themes.

He rose to national attention as a leader of the American Indian Movement in 1970 by directing a band of Indian protesters who seized the Mayflower II ship replica at Plymouth, Mass., on Thanksgiving Day. The boisterous confrontation between Indians and costumed “Pilgrims” attracted network television coverage and made Mr. Means an overnight hero to dissident Indians and sympathetic whites.

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Affirming the sovereign powers of Indian tribes, a three-judge panel of United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the Navajo Nation could prosecute the American Indian activist Russell Means even though he is not a tribal...

August 24, 2005, Wednesday

Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, a young mother and American Indian activist, was shot in the head and left to die on the Pine Ridge Reservation in the winter of 1975. The trial of one of two men accused of killing her begins here on Tuesday. Between those...

South Dakota governors have granted an untold number of pardons over the past two decades, with the state keeping the names secret under a 1983 law intended to give people a fresh start. Among the few pardons known to have been issued is one for...

Russell Means, a leader of the American Indian Movement, said he planned to run for governor next year as a Libertarian, but a felony conviction 26 years ago in South Dakota could prevent him. A New Mexico law bars anyone convicted of a felony from...